January Schofield was born in 2003 to parents who believed that naming her after their favorite month would instill a sense of calm and contentment in their new bundle of joy. As a baby, the parents quickly found that their sleep schedules were subject to the shrilling screams that lasted throughout the night, and could only be calmed - though calm was a relative word for them - by constant visual stimulation.

By the age of 3, the young parents thought they had an intellectual prodigy on their hands. Young Jani, boasting a 140+ IQ, could already read as well as calculate division and multiplication, all in her head.

As the years progressed, Jani’s behavior became more and more disturbed. She began to harm herself as well as her newborn brother. She refused to interact with other kids and exhibited behavior that could only be characterized as bizarre.

Jani is suffering Child Onset Schizophrenia. It is among the rarest of mental health conditions.

Typically the age of onset in males is somewhere in the range of 15-25, while females will usually wait much longer: their first onset usually occurring in the range of 25-35. There is no known cause, but the disease does appear to be hereditary. There is also no cure.

Once schizophrenia has taken hold, pharmacotherapy to ameliorate the positive symptoms of schizophrenia and thus containing the more troubling aspects of the disorder are the only line of defense we have. Schizophrenics suffer significantly reduced lifespan and are much more prone to taking their own lives than the general population.

The case of Jani is fascinating given her age. Her parents, after observing her bizarre behavior, her report of what seemed to be hallucinations, and her affinity to attack her younger brother, them, and even herself, took her to the usual round of specialists who were too often stymied by the unusual symptomatology. Jani was given diagnoses of bipolar, autism, ADHD, and the like, but no diagnosis was accurately describing what she was experiencing. She was prescribed Risperdal (an antipsychotic) given injections of Thorazine (another antipsychotic) and a bevy of other medications that proved ineffective.

It wasn’t until a day that she went wild, tried to choke herself, and then jumped out of her second story bedroom window that she was admitted to a psychiatric facility at UCLA and formally diagnosed with schizophrenia that she finally was able to get proper psychiatric treatment.

The reason I’m telling you all this is because it is yet another example of the failure of our field that this poor family searched desperately for answers from rounds of doctors before they were able to find a treatment facility that specialized in the type of mental health condition that she was experiencing.

Our discipline - to this point - has been completely reactive to mental health. In fact, our entire society is not only purely reactive, but most believe that if you are seeking mental health treatment then you must be “crazy.” The lack of education over the simplest of psych knowledge in the general population is astounding.

In the case of Jani and her schizophrenia, given that there is no cure there is currently little hope that she will be able to lead a normal given the severity of her symptomatology. There are some low level schizophrenics who are capable of living independently, and some even go on to live prosperous lives.

Taking care of you mental health should be as fundamental to the overall care of your life as the healthy food you eat, the exercise you get, and the doctors and dentists that you see regularly to make sure you are staying ahead of any potential health problems that could develop.

For any mental health problem, there is a very large window - sometimes a couple of years - between the onset of behavioral symptoms and the warranting of a full psychiatric diagnosis. But as that window remains open, and that person is not helped, very serious psychological damage can be done. And that damage can lead to immediate health problems - in that the introduction of cortisol in the brain due to stress further damages the brains capabilities - and in the future due to anhedonia causing these people suffering to not take care of themselves in the way that they should, thus subjecting them to a host of preventable health conditions, the most notable and lethal of which is heart disease, the number one killer in America.

Mental health checkups is something that must be integral to our normal self care, and must be implemented now. The more we wait, with the window of mental illness wide open, the more we run the risk of adversely affecting our overall health with needless and preventable conditions, and the January Schofields of the world - along with the normal kid with a mere adjustment problem - will continue to suffer more than they should.

Every time we turn on the news we are treated to pudits, op/eds, editorials, experts, pollsters, and commentators gnawing and gnashing on about whatever the latest political race of the day is. The new age of 24 hour news cycles and always on mobile devices pushing instant updates to our pockets means that now more than ever, the information at our fingertips enables us to weigh options with a pedigree only known by the most connected members of society just a few short decades ago. But is our ability to pick the right politicians becoming better or worse?HeightThe tallest president we've ever had was Abraham Lincoln staring down the rest of us mortals at 6 foot 4 inches tall. The shortest was James Madison at 5'4". Do taller candidates have the advantage?Overall the taller presidential candidate has won 53% of the elections since elections began taking place some 200 years ago. Doesn't seem like a telling statistic until we begin looking more closely at the data:The winner of the popular, rather than the electoral vote, won 59% of the time. Now take into consideration that there was a period of years in our history that we didn't have television which made it more difficult to tell what the candidates looked like. From 1789 to 1924 the shorter candidate won 15 elections while the taller candidates won 11. Then beginning in 1900, the taller candidate began winning at about a 73% clip. When television burst onto the seen in the 1950's, the taller candidate went virtually undefeated until George W. Bush won twice. But the tall guy got back in the saddle in 2008 with 6'1" Barak Obama's victory over 5'9" John McCain. Being able to see our candidates in action brought a whole new dimension to political races.For reference, since 1952 (when television in the United States gained a 56% adoption rate in households) the average presidential winner has been 184 centimeters on average, or a shade over 6 feet tall. The average height in males in the general population of the United States is 5'9". The average American male 6 foot tall or taller only comprises about 10% of the population.So if you're betting on the presidential winner and only knew their height, you would be beating the house quite regularly by picking whomever is the taller candidate. You will rake in the gambling cash as well by making similar wagers on Fortune 500 CEO's who share presidential candidates height advantages.BeautySeveral silly studies have shown that in addition to the taller candidate being the predominant victor, the more attractive candidate will often times emerge the victor as well.Of course we could say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that someone who is attractive to one person may not be attractive to another, but that is why we have statistics to use as a tool. We can overcome perceived subjectivity by asking stratified random samples of the population the same question over the way they perceive something, and see if there is statistical significance in their answers.The most recent funny social study was recently published in the venerable journal Science and asked children ages 5-13 to vote for who should be "captain of their ship" by showing them pictures of recent political candidates. The children were not able to gather any other information and were only allowed the use of their eyes to once-over the pictures they were shown. Remarkably, the children were able to predict the actual winners of the elections at a clip that far exceeded statistical significance, having only been able to use what the candidates looked like as an evaluation tool.So for males, the man with the square jaw, the deep voice, the thick hair, the symmetrical facial features, and the lowered eyebrows will be chosen over the competing male who lacks these features.Nerves wracked yet?Why Do We Do This?Evolutionarily the easy answer is because for hundreds of thousands of years it made sense to pick our leaders in this way. When we were sitting around campfires wondering when the proverbial Wutang clan was going to attack, we were more than a little extra confident about our chances if we knew that the leader of our pack was tall, strong, and good looking. If he was tall he had the reach advantage in combat, if he was strong he could hit the hardest, and if he was good looking we know now after years and years of social and bio research studies that the more attractive person, all things being equal, is going to have a statistically significant health and reproductive advantage.So it made sense for us to pick the tall, dark, and handsome fellow because if the leader of the other pack was shorter, fairer, and less handsome, our leader was more likely to be able to club their leader to the ground. Which meant we got the spoils! Similarly, we see this characteristic of survival adaptation shine through in how we pick our mates as well. We are unconsciously (and most times very consciously) attracted to and try to mate with the most attractive people we can because biologically this will give us the best chance of passing on our genes to the next generation, ensuring that our echoes in the halls of eternity are increased.What Can We Do?As Aristotle taught us thousands of years ago, what separates man from the beasts is our reason, or ability thereof. So when picking politicians, we encourage people to try to find out the most information they can about the candidates so that they can make a more informed (and intelligent) decision. We must be careful, however, that we obtain our information from a variety of sources. No matter your political orientation, it is always advisable to read, listen to, and watch the opinions of leaders from all political parties and ideologies. Making an effort to hear what other people have to say, even if you do not agree with them, will give you a weighty advantage over those who make their choices based on more superficial data. Participating in the political process is a part of our humanity that can be the best of what the human condition has to offer: serving our fellow humans. Social study after study tells us that happiness and life satisfaction are strengthened exponentially when we give our time in an effort to serve others. So keep it civil out there, use your uniquely human reasoning capacities, and remember that being a servant to other members of humanity is your highest calling, and those that choose to serve in public office are doing so because they believe that their lives are best spent in service to others. Think twice before you attempt to demonize someone with whom you disagree.Pursuit of Happiness

Chase Chick MPA LPC is CEO and co-founder of Pursuit of HappinessYou can follow us at @POHClinicBTGS